Muriel Barbery Quotes

Quotes about:

• There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature.

  Muriel Barbery

  Tree, Feelings, Humanity

  45 Copy quote

• People aim for the stars, and they end up like goldfish in a bowl. I wonder if it wouldn't be simpler just to teach children right from the start that life is absurd.

  Muriel Barbery

  Life, Stars, Children

  Muriel Barbery (2013). “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”, p.15, Gallic Books

  49 Copy quote

• Madame Michel has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside she is covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary--and terrible elegant.

  Muriel Barbery

  Real, Simple, Feelings

  74 Copy quote

• ...we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying. Climb our own personal Everest and do it in such a way that every step is a little bit of eternity. That's what the future is for: to build the present, with real plans, made by living people.

  Muriel Barbery

  Inspirational, Real, People

  "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August 31, 2006.

  21 Copy quote

• . . . maybe that's what life's all about: there's a lof of despair, but also the odd moments of beauty, where time is no longer the same . . . [like] something suspended . . . an elsewhere . . . an always within a never. Yes, that's is, an always within a never.

  Muriel Barbery

  Despair, Odd, Moments

  12 Copy quote

• With the exception of love, friendship and the beauty of Art, I don't see much else that can nurture human life.

  Muriel Barbery

  Art, Friendship Love, Human Life

  "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August 31, 2006.

  20 Copy quote

• Personally I think that grammar is a way to attain beauty.

  Muriel Barbery

  Thinking, Way, Grammar

  "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September 2, 2013.

  28 Copy quote

• or the first time in my life I understood the meaning of the word never. And it's really awful. You say the word a hundred times a day but you don't really know what you're saying until you're faced with a real "never again."

  Muriel Barbery

  Real, Awful, Firsts

  "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August 31, 2006.

  3 Copy quote

• I thought: pity the poor in spirit who know neither the enchantment nor the beauty of language.

  Muriel Barbery

  Enchantment, Spirit, Language

  "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August 31, 2006.

  20 Copy quote

• When something is bothering me, I seek refuge. No need to travel far; a trip to the realm of literary memory will suffice. For where can one find more noble distraction, more entertaining company, more delightful enchantment than in literature?

  Muriel Barbery

  Memories, Enchantment, Needs

  Muriel Barbery (2013). “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”, p.96, Gallic Books

  6 Copy quote

• I'll be searching for those moments of always within never. Beauty, in this world." - Paloma

  Muriel Barbery

  World, Moments, This World

  5 Copy quote

• When someone that you love dies..it's like fireworks suddenly burning out in the sky and everything going black.

  Muriel Barbery

  Sky, Black, Burning

  128 Copy quote

• If you want to heal Heal others And smile or weep At this very happy reversal of fate

  Muriel Barbery

  Fate, Want, Heal

  Muriel Barbery (2013). “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”, p.229, Gallic Books

  5 Copy quote

• Live, or die: mere consequences of what you have built. What matters is building well. So here we are, I've assigned myself a new obligation. I'm going to stop undoing, deconstructing, I'm going to start building. What matters is what you are doing when you die... I want to be building.

  Muriel Barbery

  What Matters, Want, Building

  "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September, 2008.

  14 Copy quote

• But many intelligent people have a sort of bug: they think intelligence is an end in itself. They have one idea in mind: to be intelligent, which is really stupid. And when intelligence takes itself for its own goal, it operates very strangely: the proof that it exists is not to be found in the ingenuity or simplicity of what it produces, but in how obscurely it is expressed.

  Muriel Barbery

  Stupid, Intelligent, Thinking

  "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September 2, 2013.

  12 Copy quote

• ...This is the first time I have met someone who seeks out people and who sees beyond. [...] We never look beyond our assumptions and, what's worse, we have given up trying to meet others; we just meet ourselves. We don't recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. If we actually realized this, if we were to become aware of the fact that we are alone in the wilderness, we would go crazy. [...] As for me, I implore fate to give me the chance to see beyond myself and truly meet someone.

  Muriel Barbery

  Crazy, Fate, Mirrors

  "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, books.google.ru. September, 2 2013.

  13 Copy quote

• How to measure a life's worth? The important thing, said Paloma one day, is not the fact of dying, it is what you are doing in the moment of your death.

  Muriel Barbery

  Important, Dying, One Day

  "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September 2, 2013.

  10 Copy quote

• The real ordeal is not leaving those you love but learning to live without those who don't love you.

  Muriel Barbery

  Real, Love You, Leaving

  19 Copy quote

• So if there is something on the planet that is worth living for, I'd better not miss it, because once you're dead, it's too late for regrets, and if you die by mistake, that is really, really dumb.

  Muriel Barbery

  Regret, Mistake, Missing

  "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September, 2008.

  3 Copy quote

• Do you know that it is in your company that I have had my finest thoughts?

  Muriel Barbery

  Finest, Company, Knows

  "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August, 2006.

  3 Copy quote

• Beauty consists of its own passing, just as we reach for it. It’s the ephemeral configuration of things in the moment, when you see both their beauty and their death. ...Does this mean that this is how we must live our lives? Constantly poised between beauty and death, between movement and its disappearance? Maybe that’s what being alive is all about: so we can track down those moments that are dying.

  Muriel Barbery

  Mean, Track, Dying

  3 Copy quote

• It would be so much better if we could share our insecurity, if we could all venture inside ourselves and realize that green beans and vitamin C, however much they nurture us, cannot save lives, or sustain our souls.

  Muriel Barbery

  Soul, Insecurity, Would Be

  "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, August, 2006.

  6 Copy quote

• When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment?

  Muriel Barbery

  Heart, Greatness, Jewels

  6 Copy quote

• I'm afraid to go into myself and see what's going on in there.

  Muriel Barbery

  "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, www.e-reading.club. September 2, 2013.

  3 Copy quote

• 'Life has meaning and we grown-ups know what it is' is the universal lie that everyone is supposed to believe. Once you become an adult and you realize that's not true, it's too late.

  Muriel Barbery

  Lying, Believe, Adults

  "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September 2008.

  11 Copy quote

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